


So stay, stay a little while

by kamelientee



Category: The Expendables (Movies)
Genre: Bickering, Drinking, M/M, being sleepy as hell, not enough touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 21:11:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1872576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamelientee/pseuds/kamelientee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back from an exhausting mission, Lee has lots of things he'd like to do, and lots of things he doesn't want to think about. Barney appears to be in a somewhat similar position.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So stay, stay a little while

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zungenleid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zungenleid/gifts).



Lee let himself fall onto the shabby armchair, making it croak under his weight and frame. The mission had been exhausting and they had come back a few hours earlier with quite a number of bruises, though it had never become actually dangerous for any of them.

They clinked glasses in silence and collectively downed their beers in one go. Lee looked around the table through half-lidded eyes. Everybody was looking sullen, none were up for talking or joking, even though they had completed the assignment quickly and successfully.

None of them were getting any younger, Lee realised, unsurprised. Each mission would be harder than the last, eventually they'd settle down like Tool, though Lee prayed that none of them would actually want to become tattoo artists. Spare the world the disaster of Hale or Gunnar trying to get creative.

He smiled to himself at the thought, just a twitch of the lips, but he felt Barney's gaze upon him immediately. The guy usually drank in Lee's smiles as if his life depended on it; Lee wasn't stupid enough not to notice, and Barney didn't even try to hide it, anyway. He looked up and smiled at Barney more openly. It was easy to give him gifts like that, and Lee was in a good mood, anyway, despite the bruises and the sleepiness. They were home, they'd be getting a bunch of dollars for the mission and the beer wasn't even half bad.

Barney just kept looking at him with the same lazy exhaustion on his face that they all sported, but Lee could see his eyes light up. He lifted his glass in salute, and both laughed softly when they found their glasses empty. Barney broke their eye contact to gesture vaguely to the bar for another round, but immediately looked back at Lee, who nodded at him in mock recognition. Great job at ordering, fearless leader, Lee thought, making himself smile again.

They sat unmoving until the beer arrived, and even then only briefly raised their glasses to each other. Lee could have sworn that Yin had fallen asleep for a couple of seconds before Gunnar poked (punched) him awake again. There was no sound to be gotten from any of them; they seemed content to be staring straight ahead of themselves into nothing - except for Barney, who preferred to stare at Lee.

There had been times when the guys had endlessly joked about Barney's obvious infatuation with his friends, and especially with Lee, but it had subsided the longer Lee had been on the team, to occasional side remarks when Barney was being especially sappy. Or when they chanced to run into one of his old friends on a mission. Lee still wasn't sure if he even wanted to hear the whole Trench story.

Lee knew that he had become selfish. He knew that lots of his actions, lots of his remarks and most of his jokes were just aimed at getting a response from Barney. It was unreasonable and almost unnerving how impatient he got when Barney talked with other people, or joked with them - teammates excepted, of course - and sometimes Lee just wished it would stop because he really, truly didn't want to think about the implications.

What was there to be jealous of?

Something in Lee's face probably gave his thoughts away, because Barney leaned in closer and put an arm around the back of Lee's creaky old chair. He clinked their glasses again and for once shifted his gaze to look at their teammates instead (Gunnar was staring holes into his half full glass, Yin and Toll were fast asleep after all, and Hale was watching some guys playing a truly half-hearted game of darts), but - almost as if to compensate for the lack of immediate attention that he was awarding Lee - gently moved his arm closer to Lee's shoulders.

Lee decided that he was too sleepy to care. Normally he would have shot Barney a mocking glance and he definitely would have made a snide remark about Barney being a creepy old pervert with obvious, lame schoolboy methods, which would have led to one of those half-assed 'I have no idea what you're talking about' bro hugs that usually left Lee weirdly disappointed - another thing he definitely would not think about, ever.

Tonight, however, he decided not to give a damn. He was tired and slowly but surely his whole body started to ache. (He'd be sporting quite a few bruises around the rips in the morning, but at least nothing felt broken. Not even his shins, which were black and blue already from an unfortunate incident on the very first day of their assignment.)

Lee huffed and nestled deeper into the chair, leaning his head against Barney's arm. He knew that by now, Barney would be grinning like the idiot he was, but Lee was way too listless to move his head to check. It was hard enough not to fall asleep, anyway. (He wanted to, and it quickly led to very confusing thoughts about wanting to fall asleep on Barney, and he wouldn't be exploring those any further, no, thank you.)

Barney was rubbing circles on his shoulder, Lee registered sleepily. He forced himself to stay awake because all of this was too good to miss. Too soothing. Too safe. Too perfect.

"Let's get you home," Barney said softly, and Lee found he couldn't argue, even though he never, ever wanted this moment to stop.

Unfortunately, Barney seemed to have other plans. He tightened his arm around Lee’s shoulders and shook him gently.

"Hey, you wanna go home?"

Lee groaned and opened his eyes to look at him. "Yeah?" he ventured, but still didn’t move. Moving was hard, and the dim light in the pub, the humming sound of the conversations around them and Barney’s steady presence beside him lulled him in. It was easy to let your guard down in an environment like that, and damned hard not to nestle up to Barney completely.

"Or maybe not," Lee added with a lopsided grin. The world was starting to get blurry, somewhere between dreaming and waking, and somewhere in the back of his head he knew that he should go home now, or else he’d be spending the night on a sticky bar table and wake up with a crooked neck in the morning. (Why wasn't it an option to spend the night next to Barney? He really, really hoped he hadn't said that out loud. But it would be great to be sleeping next to him. Totally disgustingly great. Lee was such a hopeless case, and he was ridiculously close to just asking Barney to never leave. The worst thing was that Barney wouldn't even laugh at him. He would just stay, probably. For ever. Because if there was an even more hopeless case around, it was Barney.)

Lee sat up with a sigh and finished the rest of his beer. The ride home in Barney’s antique of a car would be unpleasant (and falling asleep alone in an altogether too huge bed even more so), but he was momentarily appeased because Barney had – probably for reasons of comfort – moved his hand further down Lee’s back. Barney’s easy intimacy was going to drive him crazy one day, Lee decided.

Barney took the glass from his hand, set it on the table and pulled Lee up with him. Lee must have been swaying a bit when he got up – at least his vision went slightly dark around the edges –, because Barney tightened his grip on Lee’s waist. Lee was pretty sure that he should have said something, anything to break the tension between them, to manoeuver them out of this danger zone of unresolved feelings, but for once he kept his mouth shut and allowed Barney to lead him out of the bar.

The cold night air did nothing to clear his head (probably a slight concussion after all), but it did lift a substantial part of the numbing sleepiness from him. At least now he wouldn’t be falling asleep on the passenger seat.

Barney, ever the inexplicable gentleman, opened the passenger door for him and all but lifted him inside.

"Woah there, old man," Lee murmured, "I'm just tired, not half bedridden like you." It neither came out as sharp, nor as convincing as Lee had hoped it would, because Barney still had his hands all over him - well, on his shoulder and dangerously close to his thigh, respectively. (It was kinda preventing Lee from being able to think straight.)

He cursed the blasted old-man car for being the perfect height for Barney to manhandle his unsuspecting passengers like that.

Banging doors and women's voices briefly shouting down the street broke them out of their reverie, which was all for the better because by now, Lee couldn't think of a single reason to justify the sheer amount of time they had already spent staring at each other that night. Well, no reason except for the ones that he wasn't going to think about. The ones that made him wish Barney would be selfish enough for once to just touch him. Without hesitation or politeness or whatever it was that was holding him back. (Jesus Christ.)

They drove in silence for a couple of minutes before Barney accelerated to catch a green light, giving Lee an excuse to scoff. "Easy! Your reflexes aren't that good any more, grandpa."

"Hold on to the seat if you're scared, jackass."

"Scared of you going a dangerous 53 in a 50 zone or what?"

"Watch your mouth, young man, or I'll show you a breakneck 58."

Lee grinned. The weird tension was gone, leaving familiarity and the almost irresistible urge in Lee to reach out for Barney, just for the sake of it, just to make sure of him.

Barney beat him to it and propped up his elbow on Lee's backrest. Reusing proven methods, Lee thought to himself, but out loud he said: "Hands on the wheel."

Barney turned to look at him.

"And eyes on the road."

They grinned at each other briefly before Barney had to return his attention to the road.

"Don't worry. I'll get you to your beauty sleep safely."

"Don't you think I'm beautiful enough already?"

Barney had resolved to resting his forearm on Lee's shoulder and was thus in the perfect position to mock punch Lee's chin with the back of his hand.

"Sure you are, Christmas, sure you are. Beautiful as always, especially with that nice purple shade over your eyes. You gotta tell me the name of that brand someday."

"I'll punch you the same blasted colour free of charge if you don't shut your trap right now, Ross."

Barney moved his hand to touch Lee's chin again, this time merely stroking it softly, and Lee almost subconsciously leaned into the touch. He only realised what he was doing - really, what was he doing? - when Barney turned to look at him again in surprise.

"Eyes on the road," Lee said weakly. It sent strange shivers down his spine to feel Barney's fingers against his face when he talked. At this point he was pretty damn sure they were both just set out to make each other's lives as hard as possible. Or as pleasant. (Jesus. Christ.)

(He knew what Barney's hands felt like on his skin; Barney had checked on his bruised rips only a couple of hours ago, after all. They weren't very different from his own; large, callused, rough hands, only scarred in different places. He had never had any trouble imagining the feeling of Barney's hands on him. Sometimes he wondered how he was still able to look Barney in the eyes.)

Barney put both hands back on the steering wheel to pull up to Lee's sorry excuse for a home and parked the car. Dipshit, Lee thought. He was actually expecting Lee to make a move.

He let his head fall against the headrest (bad idea, definitely a concussion) and looked at Barney out of the corner of his eyes. No, he decided, screw his pride. He wasn't going to let this pass.

"So," he started, grinning. Yeah, this was going to work. "Thanks for the great weekend. I had a blast. Wanna come inside for a drink?"

Barney did him the favour of laughing at his half-assed attempt to turn his proposal into a joke.

"Need a nurse to bathe your sorry ass?"

Lee hit him square across the head and got out of the car - anything for Barney not to see the blush spreading across his cheeks.

"Get a move on, Ross. You’re old and grey already, no time to be lost,” he shouted back and opened the front door.

**Author's Note:**

> title taken (unceremoniously and slightly out of context) from "Diamond Eyes" by Shinedown.


End file.
